The Curse of the Grand Guignol

Summary

Book 6 in a series of chronological stand-alone plots:

France 1899. Dr Watson and Countess Volodymyrovna are drawn into the world of fin de siècle Paris by a series of macabre murders, propelling them into the naturalistic horror plays of the Grand Guignol.

Each horrific murder performed on stage is mysteriously and simultaneously re-enacted on the bohemian streets of Montmartre.Inspector Didier de Guise of the Sûreté Nationale enlists the help of our two sleuths when clues from the murder scenes point to a Slavic link.Are the bizarre murders the handiwork of anarchists creating panic prior to next year’s Paris Fair? What is the significance of all the mutilated puppets? What do the words mama, papa, baba, tato and didi signify? Could it be the demented work of a foreign lunatic with a morbid familial hatred? Could the killings be linked to the injustice of the Dreyfus affair? Or is this a monstrous publicity stunt to promote the amorality of Le Theatre du Grand Guignol?

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The Curse of the Grand Guignol - Anna Lord

1

The Balcony of Paris

Caravagesque shafts of dark and light fell on the lifeless body in the tragic manner of an old master painting. A martyred saint or biblical figure portraying some Old Testament revenge, stark in its religious naturalism: Still Life with Corpse.

The body had been dumped in the graveyard sometime during the middle of the night and artfully arranged to resemble a marionette with dramatic slashes of garish red lipstick smeared clumsily across the lips and clownish red circles dotting the cheeks, comedic and demented. There was no mistaking the virtuoso signature of the killer. This was a contrived bit of theatre. But to what purpose?

Frozen stiff, Inspector de Guise had stood like a still-life subject for a full ten minutes. Whilst standing in the Cimetiere du Calvaire memorizing every detail of the victim bizarrely draped across the sarcophagus, he had almost turned himself into a corpse. In fact, he might have been mistaken for one of the stone archangels had his breath not come out visibly frosted.

Frigid arms had iced themselves to the sides of his body. Painful chilblains were making short work of his bloodless toes. The air at the top of Montmartre was Arctic. He may as well have been swallowing shards of broken glass. Every inhalation raked his throat and lungs raw until such time as his breathing grew less laboured and his heartbeat slowed. Despite the deep freeze he was lathered in sweat. Unsurprising really, for he had practically sprinted up the 222 steps leading to the balcony of Paris.

White light was just starting to pick out the mansard roofs to the east, as cold and unforgiving as the first dawn at the beginning of time. It would be an hour or two before the winter sun had any warmth in it. The city of light was coming to life but corpse number four would never again see how the goddess of heaven could make the Eiffel Tower glint, how it could make Sacre Coeur gleam and Notre Dame glow, how it could transform a dull jewel into a glorious diamond and steal one’s breath away.

He had posted a sentry at the gate leading to rue du Mont Cenis to make sure no one disturbed the mise en scene before he was done. The rest of his men were scouring the cemetery for clues. Not that he expected them to find anything useful. The murderer was too clever – he had not left clues at the other three murder sites, at least not anything that would lead to an arrest, only that which would add to the macabre puzzle. That’s how he knew something important was missing from this concocted puppet show.

Two of his fingers had turned white. They looked calcified. That’s what came of dressing in haste and forgetting things like gloves. He cupped his hands over his mouth and breathed hard, blowing warm air onto the ossified digits. He tried wriggling his toes and when nothing happened he decided to make a promenade around the compact little cemetery, the smallest in Paris. If nothing else, it would get the blood pumping again.

The earth was carpeted in moss, damp from yesterday’s rain. He moved with caution to avoid slipping and making a fool of himself in front of his men. At least the graves here weren’t as densely packed as those in most Parisian cemeteries where headstones jammed up against one another and you could barely squeeze between the elaborate tombs and crypts.

He rarely worked murder cases this far north of the city and did not venture this way often in his private life, but he knew that this ancient graveyard, along with the Cimetiere de Charonne, was attached to a church. That’s probably why it lacked the broad leafy avenues of cemeteries such as Pere Lachaise and the Cimetiere de Montmartre and did not draw any morbid tourists. So why did the murderer choose the obscure Cimetiere du Calvaire? Why go to all the trouble to stage a puppet show if no one would see it?

A high stone wall sheltered the graveyard from the north wind and he gave thanks for small mercies. The southern side was bordered by Saint Pierre de Montmartre, the oldest church in Paris. Strictly speaking it was no such thing. It had been razed during the French Revolution and only rebuilt in the 19th century, and it actually started life much earlier as Templum Martis, a Gallo-Roman temple to Mars, the god of war, from which Montmartre took its name – Mount of Mars, Mons Martis. The Merovingian connection came much later.

In 1096 it was privately owned by the comte de Melun. In 1133 it was purchased by Louis VI and turned into an abbey. He knew all this because his namesake, Marie, duchesse de Guise, was abbess in the 1600’s and he had endured endless history lessons to remind him of it.

Of course, it was an absurdity. His family name was as much of a conceit as the Mount of Martyrs. He was the seventh son of an impoverished aristocrat of obscure origin. His family had backed every losing side since Agincourt. The family name had originally been Grosseteste until one of his ancestors decided the nom de famille lacked cachet – notably the requisite de denoting nobility. Said ancestor challenged a certain Marechal de Guise to a game of cards at which said ancestor cheated shamelessly and the name changed hands. It did not make the new de Guises any wealthier but he had to admit the name rolled more nobly off the tongue.

It was to his feckless famille that he attributed his promotion to Inspector at the relatively young age of thirty-nine. No, he had not won his promotion in a game of cards, rather, he had been able to spot a card-sharp, embezzler, forger, and thief at a glance - his family was littered with such characters. Hence, they made his job easier. Murderers were another matter. His forebears lacked the imagination required for pulling off successful murders. A drop of arsenic in the sirop de cassis was their preferred method.

He realized he had reached a dead end in the path, a metaphorical and literal cul-de-sac. That early morning sprint had finally caught up with him too. Wearily, he perched himself on the corner of a verdigris tombstone and rubbed his hands to get the circulation going.

Was the choice of cemetery relevant? Or perhaps the old church that overshadowed it? Was the murderer trying to tell him something? Was there a clue in the location? And why the puppet show? That was definitely relevant. If only he knew how and why.

After only a few minutes of sitting on a stone slab he felt like a frog on a frozen pond and decided to remove himself to someplace warmer.

The shift from half-light to semi-dark struck him at once. Caravaggio would have appreciated the subtle artistic tenebrism. Mouldering stone had a smell like Death. In here, there was no escaping it. He drew the malodour in with each flare of his nostrils, each fetid breath, until the coldness numbed his sense of smell.

Most people believed the old church was constructed in the twelfth century as a Benedictine monastery. Not much of a monastery really. If not for the perpendicular bell tower the modest little church would have become lost among the secular buildings that had massed around it in the intervening centuries. Looking east was a curved apse featuring three beautiful stained glass windows where the winter sun choreographed a kaleidoscope of lively colours, forcing the chiaroscuro to kick up its heels on the gleaming stone. Overhead, a multi-vaulted ceiling performed a celestial waltz along the full length of the criss-cross nave. Modest Saint Pierre was not without ecclesiastical merit after all. In fact, now that he’d had a chance to appreciate the architectural details he preferred it to its more majestic neighbour, Sacre Coeur, with its mannerist triptych of white couronnes.

He was studying closely the unusual columns in the nave, proof of Roman antiquity, when a voice interrupted him.

Inspector de Guise.

He turned abruptly. What is it Jules? He addressed all his underlings by their first name. It established a feeling of confraternity and it was easier to remember just the one name.

Marcel found something.

Inspector de Guise hurried out of the church and re-entered the graveyard via the wrought-iron gate that fronted rue du Mont Cenis. A rag and bone man was rumbling past with his filthy hand-cart. Bohemian artists were propping up their easels on the corner, arranging their Realistic canvases to advantage ahead of the American tourists. Rubbing her calloused hands, a flower seller, trying to keep warm, crouched between some rusty buckets of hyacinths and a fiery charcoal brazier. He spared them not a single thought as he began weaving quickly between the headstones, leaping over one grave and then another to save time going around them, forging a linear path to where two of his men were staring with incomprehensible awe at a weeping archangel.

Except it wasn’t the heavenly guardian they were gawping at. It was the cardboard tag attached to a length of string looped around the lichen-encrusted neck. It looked like a luggage tag, the sort of thing travellers attach to their valises in the event they might lose them. He felt vindicated. His instinct had not let him down. Carefully, he removed the tag from the angelic neck and read the word written in thick black lettering on the rectangle of card. Just one word; same yet different: tato. It was time to send a telegram.

Nothing had changed. Dr Watson and Countess Volodymyrovna returned to the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz after a brief sojourn at a Cathar fortress in the French countryside to find that nothing had changed. The splendid Belle Epoque hotel that had once been the palatial holiday home of the Empress Eugenie was still fully booked and the World Spiritualist Congress still in full swing. No suitable rooms were currently available. If they agreed to take single rooms on the third floor sans views and private bathrooms, and the Countess’s servants stayed in box rooms in the attic, the concierge promised to transfer them to royal suites with glorious views of the Bay Basque as soon as the Theosophists from New York checked out, which he assured them would be first thing Monday.

It’s only for three nights, reasoned the Countess, looking coaxingly at her travelling companion.

What choice do we have? he grumbled, catching his pallid reflection in a pier glass. All he really wanted was a place to lay his head. The puffy pillows under his eyes were starting to define his face. Any puffier and they would start defining his character. "I plan to place a Do Not Disturb sign on my door. You can wake me three days hence."

She made sure to smile at his pawky humour before turning back to the concierge and accepting the compromise. While she was putting her signature to the hotel register the concierge remembered something important.

A telegram arrived in your absence, Countess Volodymyrovna. I was not sure if you would be returning to the Hotel du Palais. I put it aside in this special box with the master keys. Ah, that’s odd. Someone must have removed it. He hunted around, rummaging through various boxes crammed full of cuff-links, buttons, tie pins and lost keys. "I will leave no stone unturned in my search for it, la comtesse, he assured, looking vexed. In the meantime, the porter will take up your bags." Briskly, he dinged three times on the small bell at the end of the counter, summoning three lobby boys to take charge of the copious luggage.

Dr Watson and the Countess had reached the stately sweep of stairs when a voice called out, "Voici! Voici! La comtesse!"

Looking pleased, the punctilious concierge hurried across the marble foyer, waving a piece of paper with as much dignity as his professional station allowed.

Full of curiosity, the Countess veered toward a Regence settee set in an alcove to peruse the missive without further ado. The doctor decided the settee looked more inviting than the stairs and promptly parked himself on the opposite end of the bench.

This is interesting. A high-pitched feminine note hinted at arousal. It’s from Inspector de Guise.

Who?

The inspector from the Sûreté Nationale who met our ship when we first docked in Biarritz, she reminded.

Dr Watson winced inwardly at the memory, though he had more than a grudging respect for the equivalent of Scotland Yard-across-the-Channel and men such as the French inspector who would have worked as tirelessly as the unimaginative Lestrade, calling criminals to account and forfeiting the routine comfort of hearth and home for little pay and no glory. Unlike most of his countrymen, the doctor was familiar with the name Vidocq, the Frenchman responsible for the Sûreté Nationale; setting it up in 1811, long before Scotland Yard was ever dreamt of.

A career criminal, Francois Vidocq beat criminals at their own game, having been one of them, by employing disguises, subterfuge, duplicity, and boldly venturing into the darkest pockets of Paris where the regular police feared to tread. He introduced the use of plaster casts for footprints, invented forger-proof paper, invisible ink, and other notable firsts. But it was his meticulous record-keeping that truly set him apart and helped him match crimes to criminals without even setting foot outside his own door. In 1833 he became the world’s first consulting detective, yes, even beating the inimitable Sherlock Holmes to the covetous title.

Dr Watson signalled for her to continue.

I shall paraphrase in English, she said. The gist is this: A series of macabre murders have tested the limits of the French police for the past month. The latest murder had a Slavic touch to it and Inspector de Guise immediately thought of me – how sweet! He was hoping that if we were passing through Paris on our way back to London we might spare him a few days.

Is that it?

I admit it’s short on detail. She folded the telegram into quarters, slipped it into her embroidered reticule and snapped it shut, painfully aware of how exhausted her sleuthing counterpart was looking. His six and forty years were starting to show. Age generally treated men blessed with gentle charm kindly. Boyish dimensions simply rounded themselves out, plumping out any wrinkles. Jowly chops and baggy chins made them look like lovable Labradors rather than curmudgeonly British bulldogs. But there were touches of grey at his temples and lately he had started to stoop, especially after he had been sitting for a length of time.

She didn’t have the heart to even begin trying to convince him to detour to Paris, especially at the start of winter. The city of love was enchanting in the spring and summer, pleasant enough in the autumn, but in winter every boulevard turned into the rue morgue and every park morphed into an ossified garden of skeletal trees and lifeless heroes. A week of bracing sea air in Biarritz followed by a short ferry ride to Southampton would see him safely home to the warm bosom of Mother England, refreshed and ready to enjoy the Yuletide season.

I shall telegraph that we have made alternative arrangements for travelling to London and will not be passing through Paris.

I think we should go.

She almost fell off her perch. What did you say?

I said we should go.

She studied his face for gawkiness – the wry lip, the glint in the eye. Are you serious?

From the moment he’d stepped over the threshold of the Hotel du Palais – not more than ten minutes ago - he’d spent the time silently observing the so-called Spiritualists of the world wafting to and fro like a self-congratulating carnival of crooks, an unashamed parade of death-eaters, who preyed on the sad and gullible – and he should know since he had once been one of them; a lost and lonely soul after the sudden so-called death of Sherlock and then his dear Mary.

Snippets of conversations had floated across the vast foyer and reached his ears – electricity versus ectoplasm, astronomy versus astrology, the science of the séance. It was enough to send him barking mad. A few days in this Mardi Gras of madness, mingling with crystal ball gazers, tarot card readers, necromancers and assorted loonies and he would commit a macabre murder of his own.

I have never been more serious in my life. He pushed abruptly to his feet, marched to the reception desk and dinged the bell sharply. There has been a change of plans, he addressed with blunt force. "Cancel our rooms and send our luggage to the train station. Book two private sleepers first class and two sleepers in second class for the first available train going to Paris, tout de suite, er, s’il vous plait. He then turned to the Countess. Telegraph the French inspector to expect us tomorrow. He whirled back to the stunned concierge. I do not care if the train is going via Constantinople or St Petersburg as long as it is going tonight – vous comprenez? Oh, and have a copy of as many French newspapers as you can find for this past month delivered to my private compartment as soon as you have booked it."

Reinvigorated, his stoop had straightened itself out and his roundly compassed chin was tilted north. He looked totally reborn as he threw down some largesse and offered his arm to the Countess. Shall we adjourn to the L’Orangerie for afternoon tea?

You order for both of us, she said quickly, before he had a change of heart, unable to fathom what had triggered such esprit de vivre, overlooking the fact he had employed an extra ‘the’ redundantly. I’ll send that telegram and join you presently.

Giddy with the brutality of it all, the rag-grubber clipped a greasy cobble, lost his footing, teetered as if drunk, tried not to gag, failed miserably and vomited into the gutter. His stomach muscles somersaulted at the nauseating stench of his own sick, his insides contracted violently before ricocheting dramatically, snapping back into place after the wretched heave. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut by a horse. Winded, he waited for the spasms to stop before moving on with his rickety cart. He couldn’t risk it toppling over. He couldn’t risk losing his load.

Nightmarish yellow gaslight, blurred by a filthy fog, hissed sporadically. He caught his jaundiced reflection in a dirty cafe window and gave himself a fright. He looked like a grotesque parody of a vertiginous gargoyle, like one of the scare-mongering guardians of Notre Dame replete with bulging eyes, distended body, elongated limbs and spewing gorge-hole. A monster spawned from the dark-side of medieval imagination, designed to terrify the illiterate, to convert them to the Catholic faith. See! The devil is outside. Come inside. Step over the holy portal. Here, you will feel safe in the golden glow of God’s love.

Reaching out into the yellow light, he caught hold of a lamp-post to stop his hands shaking with spontaneous deliriums, unwittingly smearing a bloody handprint on the grooves in the metal. His legs felt wobbly. His knees felt as if they might buckle. He waited for the jambs to strengthen. He waited for his head to stop spinning. He waited for the world to re-right itself…we are the sum of our sorrows.

The obliging concierge located Dr Watson and the Countess in the conservatory of the Hotel du Palais and the news he had to impart was as welcome as the winter light pouring through the glass roof. He had managed to secure two private sleepers and two places in second class on a train leaving for Paris within the hour. Their tickets were awaiting them at the station and the newspapers that had been requested were awaiting them in the doctor’s compartment.

The rag and bone man turned a corner and paused to plunge his hands into a horse trough that he knew would be there. The water was covered with a thin crust of ice. The cold gave him a jolt like a lightning bolt. It felt as if an ice-pick had been thrust into the back of his head. He steeled himself and plunged again, careful not to make too much of a splash, rubbing hard, harder than he needed to. In the morning the water would be stained red but he would be long gone. He would be back in the land of the living – appalled, aggrieved, indignant, adding his self-righteous voice to the good citizens of France, calling for action, demanding protection, denouncing the incompetent Paris police, his cries drowning out his cri de coeur…we are the sum of our sorrows.

Newspaper excerpts for the month prior:

The body of a prosperous Parisian art dealer was discovered in the Bois de Vincennes in the early hours of the morning. He had been stabbed by a sharp instrument before being robbed. He leaves behind a wife and three sons.

A Russian émigré living in the Marais was beaten to death with a rolling pin wielded by his Breton wife. Several neighbours heard loud screams but refused to intervene for the man was a drunkard, prone to fits of violence, and they feared for their lives. The wife confessed to the crime and was immediately charged with murder. Seven children were taken to the nearest orphanage; one infant and a three month old baby will join their mother in prison.

A Malay sailor on shore leave from the opium clipper Indochine was knocked over by a horse and cart outside the Gare du Nord. His face was unrecognizable and every bone in his body was crushed.

Madame Hertzinger fell from the third floor balcony of her apartment in the Marais. Her salon was a popular meeting place for bohemian artists. She died instantly. The splatter of blood on the pavement was pronounced spectaculaire and has already spawned a new art movement whose adherents have been dubbed The Splattereurs. An exhibition of their daubings will be held at the Galerie soixante-six on the Place de Puces in the Marais, commencing the first day of December and continuing until Lent.

Five workmen were killed when the ditch they were digging for the foundations of the north gate of the Paris Fair collapsed, burying them alive. A memorial service will be held at the eglise Saint-Sulpice, next Sunday.

Nothing macabre in that lot, declared the Countess, folding the newspaper in half and tossing it on top of the pile before gazing out of the window and realizing that the shift from light to dark had happened without her noticing.

How many newspapers have we scanned so far? quizzed Dr Watson, suppressing the third yawn in a row before pulling down the shade. Eight? Nine? Ten? I suspect the word ‘macabre’ must have a different meaning in French.

There’s one newspaper left. You read. My throat is hoarse.

My French is not on a par with yours.

This isn’t a reading competition. Marks will not be deducted for missed liaisons.

Reluctantly, he coughed to clear his throat which suddenly felt hoarse in sympathy with hers. Here goes: The battered body of a prominent French citizen was found at the base of the steps of Scare Coeur. It appeared he may have trod on dog excrement, lost his footing, and tumbled to his death. Parisians of all classes are incensed at the senselessness of such a disgraceful death. Several men-of-letters have petitioned for amendments to the city’s by-laws: All dogs should be kept on leashes and dog-walkers imprisoned for one week for not cleaning up after their four-legged charges. The name of the deceased has been suppressed to spare his family name being dragged into the matter.

That one sounds a little bizarre, she said hopefully.

Mmm, but not what you might call macabre.

True, pray continue.

The rag-picker’s prayers were answered when he slipped into the narrow rue de Brouillard where phantoms conspired to cloak him mist; colluding with Night to veil him in layers of murky pigments. Like a grey ghost in